assets | ||
cmd/replay | ||
extra | ||
records | ||
term_conn | ||
tls | ||
web | ||
.gitignore | ||
go.mod | ||
go.sum | ||
LICENSE | ||
main.go | ||
README.md |
WiTTY: Web-based interactive TTY
This program allows you to use terminal in the browser. Simply run the program and give it the command to execute when users connect via the browser. The main design goal of this tool is to help teaching courses that use Unix-like CLI environment. WiTTY has the following features that distinguish itself from other similar tools:
It allows others to view onging interactive sessions. This is useful for providing live remote support and/or help (only use this after user authentication is implemented).
A challenge of this use case is that our home networks are almost always behind NAT, making it diffcult to run WiTTY as a publicly accessible server. Security is also a concern. It is generally safer to use WiTTY in a trusted environment.
WiTTY allows users to easily record, replay, and share console sessions with just a few clicks. This make it a breeze to answer course-related questions, espeically with the source code. Instead of wall of text to describe their questions, students can just send a recorded session.
This repository contains a recorded session in the
assets/extra
directory (M1NXZvHdvA8vSCKp_61e5d60f.scr) that shows me upgrading pihole. Just put the file under therecords
directory, run the server, you should find the recording in theRecorded Session
tab.More features are planned, suggestions are welcome.
You can use WiTTY to run any command line programs, such as
bash
, htop
, vi
, ssh
.
This following screenshot shows that three interactive session running
zsh
on macOS Monterey.
The following screenshot shows three recorded sessions. You can replay/download/delete them.
Here is a recorded session, where we domonstrate how to use the
command line replay utility (in cmd/replay
) to replay
another recorded session that sshes into a Raspberry Pi running pi-hole. You can pause and seek the
replay.
The inception is strong with this one!
To use the program, you need to provide a TLS cert. You can request a
free Let’s Encrypt cert or use a
self-signed cert. By default, WiTTY authenticate users with username and
password. You can add a new user using
witty adduser <username>
, and delete an existing user
with witty deluser <username>
. It is also possible to
disable user authentication with -n/-naked
to the run
command. For example, witty run -n zsh
will run zsh without
user authentication.
This program is written in the go
programming language, using the Gin web framework, gorilla/websocket, pty, and the wonderful xterm.js! The workflow is simple, the
client will initiate a terminal window (xterm.js) and create a websocket
with the server, which relays the data between pty and xterm. You can
customize the look and feel of the HTML pages by editing files under the
assets
directory.
Most icons were provided by fontawesome under this license.
Installation
Install the go compiler. Make sure you have go 1.17 or higher.
Download the release and unzip it, or clone the repo
git clone https://github.com/syssecfsu/witty.git
Go to the
tls
directory and create a self-signed cert# Generate a private key for a curve
openssl ecparam -name prime256v1 -genkey -noout -out private-key.pem
# Create a self-signed certificate
openssl req -new -x509 -key private-key.pem -out cert.pem -days 360
Return to the root directory of the source code and build the program
go build .
Add a user to the user accounts, follow the instructions on screen to provide the password
./witty adduser <username>
Start the server and give it the command to run. The server listens on 8080, for example:
./witty run htop
or./witty run ssh <ssh_server_ip> -l <user_name>
If so desired, you can disable user authenticate with
-n/-naked
, (not recommended) for example:./witty run -naked htop
You can also specify the port number WiTTY listens on with
-p/port
. For example:./witty run -p 9090 ssh 192.168.1.2
Connect to the server with your browser, using port 8080 or the one specified in step 6, for example
https://<witty_server_ip>:8080
You can also replay the recorded sessions with witty. Set your terminal window to 120x36 before using this.
./witty replay -w 500 records/<recorded file>.scr
The program has been tested on Linux, WSL2, Raspberry Pi 3B (Debian), and MacOSX using Google Chrome, Firefox, and Safari.